Hezbollah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said on Tuesday indirect negotiations between his group and Israel over a prisoner exchange had begun through a U.N.-appointed mediator."I would like to assure all those interested in this file that there are serious negotiations that are continuing," Nasrallah told Hezbollah's television station in an interview. "The delegate appointed by the U.N. secretary-general is conducting this mission and is meeting a Hezbollah delegation and also on the other side Israelis concerned with this file." It was the first word that indirect talks were under way to secure the release of the prisoners. There was no immediate comment from Israel. ... http://abcnews.go.com

Tribesmen in Pakistan have rallied against Islamabad's alliance with the US after an air strike on an alleged militant camp at an Islamic school. At least 10,000 people protested in the north-western town of Khar near the site of Mon missile attack. President Musharraf said the 80 people killed were militants, not students as protesters say. But a raid survivor told the A P that children had died and the school had not been used by militants. In his first comments since the raid, Gen Musharraf said those killed were "militants doing military training". "We were watching them for the last six or seven days - we knew exactly who they are, what they are doing," he told a conference in Islamabad. "Anyone who says that these people were innocent [religious students] is telling lies," he said. But Abu Bakar, one of three survivors from the raid, disputed the president's version. "There was not militant training in the madrassa," he told the (AP) news agency from his hospital bed...http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/6101092.stm

A bomb has ripped through a wedding convoy in Baghdad, killing at least 15 people, four of them children, the interior ministry says. The car bomb struck a procession of vehicles at dusk in Ur, on the outskirts of Baghdad's Sadr City. The bomb came as residents of Sadr City celebrated the lifting of a security cordon around the Shia stronghold. The blockade was imposed after the authorities suspected that an abducted American soldier might be held there. At total of at least 19 people were injured in the attack on the wedding party. Earlier, at least 30 bus passengers were kidnapped by an armed gang on a road north of Baghdad, police say. ...http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6102768.stm

U.S. troops on Tuesday abandoned checkpoints around the Shiite militia stronghold of Sadr City on orders from Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, the latest in a series of moves by the Iraqi leader to assert his authority with the U.S. administration. The U.S. military announced the deaths of two soldiers in fighting in the Baghdad area on Monday, one from small arms fire, the other from a roadside bomb. Those brought the number of troops killed in Iraq this month to 103. U.S. forces disappeared from the checkpoints within hours of the order to remove the around-the-clock barriers by 5:00 p.m., setting off celebrations among civilians and armed men gathered on the edge of the sprawling slum that is under the control of the Mahdi Army militia run by radical anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. Had this been a small group we would have attacked them long ago, but these are big enough and can fight back, so we mainly leave them be and go after weaker groups...http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15493909/

The Next Congress:Both political parties say America's safety requires the next Congress to improve mass-transit security and intelligence efforts, but Democrats think it must immediately address fraud and waste at the Department of Homeland Security. Democrats vow to flex their subpoena and investigative muscles if elected to lead Congress next month and will take on President Bush's use of wiretaps. "We have not had significant issues addressed from an oversight standpoint -- we've not issued one subpoena," said Rep. Bennie Thompson, the Mississippi Democrat who as ranking member of the House Homeland Security Department is in line to lead the panel. "Leadership, in agreement with the chairman, just decided that it [investigations] was not a priority," Mr. Thompson said. "That will not be a problem with the new Congress."...http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20061031-120132-5481r.htm

NASA Administrator Michael Griffin on Tuesday approved sending a space shuttle to repair the 16-year-old Hubble Space Telescope, reversing his predecessor's contentious decision to nix the mission."We are going to add a shuttle servicing mission to the Hubble Space Telescope to the shuttle's manifest to be flown before it retires," Griffin told workers at Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland on Tuesday. Griffin's announcement was greeted eagerly by astronomers who feared Hubble would deteriorate before the end of the decade without a mission to add new camera instruments, sensors and replace aging batteries.The shuttle mission will likely be in early 2008....http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/space/10/31/hubble.ap/index.html?eref=rss_us